Art Spiegelman Gives ‘MetaMaus’ Talk in L.A.

In his new book “MetaMaus,” writer and cartoonist Art Spiegelman addresses at length the three main questions he’s been asked about “Maus,” his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel which casts Polish Jewish families as mice and German Nazis as cats: Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics?

Spiegelman gave a condensed version of his explanations Sunday afternoon to a small crowd at Los Angeles Soho House. In a session moderated by Michael Silverblatt — and taped for radio station KCRW’s cultural conversations session UpClose — the author talked about how “Maus” grew out of his interest in the comic book format. Already a member of the comics underground of the 1970s, when graphic novels weren’t given the same respect they’re given today, he wanted to create a comic book that needed a bookmark to be finished and could be re-read instead of just being thrown away.

Spiegelman’s interest in exploring the comic book format dovetailed with his learning more about his parents’ time spent in concentration camps during World War II. Spiegelman said his parents didn’t tell him too much about their experiences when he was a boy, apart from small asides while walking through a supermarket or remarking on other families in their Rego Park neighborhood in New York. But after attending college, Spiegelman found his father was more willing to talk about his time in the camps and his son recorded their sessions, later turning them into “Maus.” Creating the book helped him “escape the tyranny of childhood mystery,” he said.

Originally published as a three-page comic in “Funny Animals #1″ by Apex Novelties, Spiegelman later expanded his work into two volumes. Pantheon published the first half in 1986 as “Maus 1: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History,” after Spiegelman raised concerns about a coming feature cartoon produced by Steven Spielberg called “An American Tail.” Though the film was considerably lighter in tone, Spiegelman feared audiences would confuse the two and after receiving a positive write-up of his in-progress work in the New York Times Book Review, was able to secure his desired early release. He published “Maus II” in 1991 and Spiegelman won a special Pulitzer Prize for the two-volume series in 1992.

Originally intended as a 20th anniversary revisiting, “MetaMaus” is now being released closer to the original tale’s 25th anniversary and was personally designed by Spiegelman himself. The book’s text is based on a series of taped interviews he had with Hillary Chute, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago, but the art — family photographs, working drafts and sketches, personal notes — was all chosen and arranged by Spiegelman. The book also comes paired with a DVD that feature supplementary material, including Spiegelman’s interviews with his father.

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